CHAPTER THREE
4. HOW RELEVANT IS IDENTITY IN SOUTH AFRICA?
other. This would make each understand the other much better and appreciate their cultural values. This would enable us in South Africa to correctly appropriate the knowledge and the skills we have in the building up of our democratic South Africa, a nation free of oppression and racism of any form. Identity produces a dream for us in our country. In South Africa we need a dream similar to that of Martin Luther King, Jr, which will make us work hard on it so that it becomes a reality. Listen to King's multiracial dream for America, which was heavily influenced by his religious background.
I have a dream that one day in the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
(Martin Luther King, Jr, in John Stott, 1984:194)
King's vision came at a time when the oppressed in America were trying to unearth their true identity, so thatth~ycould fight for their freedom as unified black Americans who were oppressed. They needed to have a clear identity of who they were and who their oppressors were, and who they were in terms of the oppressors'identity. After this identity isolation, clarity ofidentities ofthese racial groups would have been
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achieved, realizing this dream of multiracialism. This dream would have come after a good social analysis had been done and people groups had been identified and their socio-political and economic behaviour had been identified. A thorough investigation of the reality of King's dream would have been done. I believe
that King's dream for a multiracial society of America was premature for it to be realized by the oppressed minority of black people. Recent racial attacks and the burning down of black churches in America by white suspects does show that King's dream was too premature to be practical.
This search for identity continues among African-Americans. Many ofthem are found in and out ofAfrica trying to search for their roots. A friend of mine who is African-American is working in South Africa as a missionary. He has tried very hard, and with great success, to find his African identity. He did intensive research in New Guinea and eventually found out where his great grandparents came from, down to the approximate location where they had lived.
Malcolm X, who was a contemporary of Martin Luther King,lr,was very much opposed to King's dream and he preached rather for separation from the white people. He was also influenced by his religious background. So religion was central to his struggle in liberating the black American oppressed minority.
In his book "Martin and Malcolm and America", lames Cone discusses Malcolm X's separation appeal, as he says:
For Malcolm, separation was not a temporary, tactical position but rather an ideological commitment.
God demanded separation. The desire to integrate was a sign of self-hatred. Malcolm urged blacks to show love for themselves by separating from "the blue-eyed white man." His vituperative language against whites did not mean that he hated whites or that he was trying to make blacks hate them.
Rather his purpose was to wake blacks up to the need to love each other. What some called "hate teaching," Malcolm called "love teaching." "If! did not love you," he told an audience of Harlem blacks, " I wouldn't stick my neck out. This is love talk. We love you, but we don't love him (the white man). We want to unite with you, but we don't want to unite with him. We recognize you as our brother, but we don't recognize that old blue-eyed thing as our brother. Let him go out and be a brother to himself." (1991: 108)
King and Malcolm X were both trying to paint a cultural, political and religious identity of African- Americans from a perspective ofoppression. Yes, both ofthem had different interpretations ofthis cultural, political and religious identity, but both of them earned the right to be listened to by oppressed black Americans. And both of them had the black masses listening to them. Whether they agreed with them or not, they listened. Common to them was their ability to paint a clear picture of identity for those who were oppressed, poor, and marginalised in their community and in their country. However, neither ofthem were the Africans that Mbiti is addressing. But a lesson can be learnt from their ability to rally people around a felt need. Some ofthem participated in the call by these two African-American leaders for the liberation ofthe oppressed and marginalised. This is what Mbiti's African theology will have to do if it is to empower the poor and marginalised people of South Africa.Itwillhave to involve them in a meaningful way so they are subjects of the change not objects. Paulo Freire argues the importance ofthe victim's participation in their struggle to make their life better and that their contribution should be encouraged:
I cannot think for others or without others, nor can others think for me. Even if the people's thinking is superstitious or naive, it is only as they rethink their superstitions in action that they can change.
Producing and acting upon their own ideas - not consuming those of others - must constitute that process (1989: 100).
What I want to underline in this quotation is that it is important that the poor and marginalized are so mobilized that they are able to act together through a creative action that will begin to show how powerful they are when they act in a united way. This is not a new thing or action in our South African situation.
During the hard times ofthe oppressive Regime ofApartheid, the poor and oppressed mobilised themselves in a powerful and unified action against their oppressors. Today we have a democratic government which recognises all people as equals, irrespective of their social and economic status. Therefore, it would be absolutely empowering for the poor and marginalized in South Africa to think and act in this way as they seek to empower themselves.
Paulo Freire goes on saying:
It is absolutely essential that the oppressed participate in their revolutionary process with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as subjects of the transformation. If they are drawn into the process as ambiguous beings, partly themselves and partly the oppressors housed within them - and if they come to power still embodying that ambiguity imposed on them by the situation of oppression - it is my contention that they will merely imagine they have reached power. Their existential duality may even facilitate the rise of a sectarian climate leading to the installation of bureaucracies which undermine the revolution. If the oppressed do not become aware of this ambiguity during the course of the revolutionary process, they may participate in that process with a spirit more revengeful than revolutionary. They may aspire to revolution as a means of domination, rather than as a road to Liberation. (1989:121-122)
That means the poor and marginalised have to be motivated to be able to think for themselves and not wait for others to think on their behalf. Their role in the betterment of their community has to be a "critical awareness of their role as subjects of their transformation." That would make them always have a continuous critical assessment oftheir participation in the betterment oftheir community life. Their critical assessment of their involvement in making their community better must be done communally and continuously. This will enable the poor and marginalised to continuously develop their community life.
Through this they will be able to eradicate poverty and marginalisation ofthe people. This will be possible as a result of involving the poor and marginalised in the key institutions of the society as I said in the first chapter. It is the communal endeavour that will bring empowerment to the poor and powerless.
Individualistic efforts have a tendency to remain with those individuals or a very small percentage of the community and they are not sustainable. If things are done communally is there any significant role for the individual? Or does the individual exist at all? This is the question which needs to be asked, especially in the context of an African community. The following case study might clarify this point.
CaseStudy 11
A white minister from a rich and powerful background who had fully understood the identity of an individual in the context of Ubuntu moved with his family to minister the Gospel in a poor and marginalised black community. Nico Smith is the minister who had this realization. He felt deeply convicted by the Gospel message, encouraged by the fact that "a person is a person because of the others."
He moved from Pretoria Central to Mamelodi, a township outside Pretoria which was poor and marginalised and started to encourage and empower those who were downtrodden. He organized individual families to meet together on a regular basis and have meals together. In this group meeting, "Koinonia" as he called it, people started to see what help they could be to each other, the rich to the poor and the poor to the rich. They realized their empowerment as they related to each other on a regular basis.